Butter Me Up

In search of Portland’s best croissant.

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Marrying two fine Portland traditions—gorging on fatty
foods and obsessive artisanal baking—the croissant is a true test of any
fancy local bakery’s bona fides. But with an obscene amount of butter
cunningly hiding Mary Poppins-style in every pastry, and absolutely no
redeeming nutritional value, any croissant containing up to half your
daily allowance of calories had better be worth it.

WW’s intrepid
team of tasters nobly sacrificed their arteries to find Portland
croissants worth shaving a few hours off your life for. We were looking
for a crisp, delicate, flaky crust; a light, airy center; and a rich,
buttery flavor that made us moan like softcore porn stars.

4834 SE Division St., 233-1121; 1824 NE Alberta St.v, 284-6564, provence-portland.comComments: “This is not good.” “It kind of tastes like a dinner roll.” “This is only barely better than the ones at Winco.”

Score: 2

St. Honoré

2335 NW Thurman St., 445-4342, sainthonorebakery.comComments: “It doesn’t look like a lot of
care was put into the presentation.” “I think this is a serviceable
croissant. You wouldn’t complain about it.” “It has a chemical taste to
it.”

939 NW 10th Ave., 208-3113, lovejoybakers.comComments: “Really nice crust.” “Too
confected.” “This is more like a pastry than a croissant.” “A little
short on salt.” “If you wanted a croissant, I don’t think this would
satisfy.” “If you wanted a Danish it might satisfy, though.”

Score: 3

Fleur de Lis

3930 NE Hancock St., 459-4887, fleurdelisbakery.comComments: “This is classic croissant
flavor.” “It looks like a crab claw.” “The shape is a problem: The
middle is way better.” “But the ends are problematic.”

Score: 3.5

St Jack

2039 SE Clinton St., 360-1281, stjackpdx.comComments: “They’ve got a lot of butter.”
“Also very sweet.” “You can squish it and it retains its form; it’s like
memory foam!” “Is this cultured butter?” “A little doughy, but I like
the flavor a lot. I’m not crazy about the texture.”

2600 SE Division St., 238-3458, littletbaker.comComments: “It kind of tastes like BBQ!”
“Nicely flaked, good layers.” “I’m just happy how much butter is in
here.” “I’m sick of croissants now, and this still tastes really good.”

Score: 4.5

Biggest: There were some whoppers, but Alder Pastry and Dessert’s really took the cake (so to speak).

Prettiest: Both Ken’s and
Lovejoy’s were textbook croissants, with glistening brown crusts. But we
gave the edge to Lovejoy for its perfectly layered folds anddelicately fanned ends. There was, however, one strongly dissenting opinion in favor of Nuvrei’s elegant “crab pincer” design.

Homeliest: St. Honoré’s were a bit misshapen, without much puff, and weird little “tails” sticking out from the middle.

Best overall: This was tough. Both Alder and Little
T were outstanding. But we gave Little T’s croissant the edge for its
wonderfully browned crust, distinctive flavor and more rational portion
size.

The Little Things

Baking with the best at Little T.

OOH LA-LA: Little T’s croissants take three days to make. They’re worth it.

Credits: vivianjohnson.com

Little T American Baker glows in the light of the early
morning. The decor is sparse: a few tables, a counter, everything in
wood and brushed silver. Nothing weighs the space down, and even the
delicate pastries and crusted breads seem to hang suspended in the
square glass cases and windows.

The back of the shop,
where the baking takes place, is a different story. A five-deck German
bread oven gives off an unrelenting aura of heat. The bake staff,
dressed in their uniform of navy Little T T-shirts and white aprons,
works easily but methodically; no one stands around, and if you do,
you’re going to get in the way. Among the workers, Tim Healea, Little
T’s owner and head baker, blends in, giving direction when asked and
signing off on finished (or unfinished) baked goods.

“No, those aren’t
done,” he tells one of the bakers as they pull a sheet of
Provençal-style doughnuts out of the oven. “They should be golden
brown.” NPR hums in the background as the bakers work on, never ceasing.
The mood is quiet, hot and assured: They’re busy making some of the
best baked goods in Portland, and they know it.

It’s 6:15 am, and the
staff at Little T has already been working for two hours. Freshness,
Healea stresses, is key to the quality of their goods. The croissants,
voted the best in the city by WW, are already in the oven en route to their 7 am appearance right as the store opens.

Healea points out the
oven where the croissants are baking. Like all of Little T’s pastries,
the croissants are baked on the top two decks of the bread oven, with a
little bit of steam.

“A lot of places make their croissants in a convection oven,” Healea notes, “so this is one way we set ourselves apart.”

The bread oven heats the croissants from the bottom, so they can rise while maintaining a nice bottom crust.

“One key thing is the
dough,” Healea explains. The fermentation process in croissant dough is
crucial and time-intensive. “Just ’cause there’s a lot of butter
doesn’t mean you can skimp on the dough.”

And it is a lot of butter.

“The amount of butter
that we use is approximately one-third the weight of the dough, so if
the dough is 3 kilos, we’re using a kilo of butter,” says Healea, his
metric measurements betraying his background in European baking.

“The
croissant is where bread and pastry intersect. You need the
fermentation process of a bread maker with the attention to detail of a
pastry maker,” Healea says, methodically cutting through the golden
crust of one of the fresh-baked pastries to reveal its honeycombed,
delicate interior. “Just paying attention to the little things, that
makes a big difference.” NATASHA GEILING.